Apple is getting serious about mHealth

With Apple’s latest iOS updates, it is getting evident that digital health is one of their top priorities moving ahead. There have been plenty startups that have been building up mHealth solutions but only few of them have managed to get real scale and the medical community behind them. Moving ahead from simple health wellness solutions to actual medical care is the real promise of mHealth. Apple is taking this very seriously with their Apple Watch and their Health app. With iOS 11.3 Apple is bringing in Health records to their app in collaboration with 12 healthcare clinics/hospitals.

iPhone users will now be able to organize their medical information like conditions, medications, immunizations, lab results, allergies, procedures and vitals. They will receive a notification when their data is updated. It will be really handy for people to have lists of medications or their last blood reports available in the Health app. In terms of privacy, all the medical information will be encrypted & locally stored on the device.

The key for their Health program is going to be growing partnerships since it’s going to be more about the ecosystem that can add value to iPhone users. Later this year, the new Apple Watch might be interesting to look out for, with blood glucose monitoring sensors that have been in the rumor mills for a while now. R&D on medical healthcare is definitely an area with which Apple’s iOS is leading other platforms like Android.